Secure Software Development Lifecycle Practices Security should not be an afterthought. The Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) embeds security into every phase of building software, from planning to retirement. When teams align people, processes, and tools, they reduce risk and ship more reliable products.
Apply security early and continuously. Across requirements, design, implementation, and operations, deliberate security choices save time and money later.
Requirements and threat modeling: define security goals, classify data, and perform a lightweight threat model to surface risks early. Design and architecture: use defense in depth, secure defaults, and data-flow diagrams to limit exposure. Implementation and dependencies: follow secure coding guidelines, pin third-party libraries, and track known vulnerabilities. Verification and testing: combine static analysis, dynamic testing, and peer reviews to catch issues before release. Release and operations: secure configuration, secrets management, and ongoing monitoring. Incident response and learning: keep an up-to-date incident response plan and learn from any issue. Threat modeling and secure design Threat modeling helps you understand what to protect and from whom. Start with asset inventory and data flows, then apply simple methods like STRIDE or PASTA to surface risks. Example: a web service stores session tokens. Threats include token theft, replay, and weak rotation. Mitigation steps: short token lifetimes, secure storage, and encrypted transmission.
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